When I came across the call for submissions for a book of “dinosaur porn,” I had to ask the folks behind it the obvious question: What the heck is dinosaur porn? Arnaud Brassard, a designer at Ferno House, the publisher behind the project, was kind enough to enlighten me.

MMB: Where did the idea for a book of dinosaur porn come from and what the heck is it?

Arnaud Brassard: The idea behind Dinosaur Porn originated from watching footage of some strange and terrible German porn. It featured two women “making love” to a person dressed in a ridiculously low-budget T-Rex costume, with an enormous prosthetic penis attached (and used) as a dildo. It even featured a money shot with purple, toxic-looking goo. The whole project reeked of basement-budget kink and desperation. In other words, ew. But relating this story to others always elicited the same response: “What?! Dinosaur porn?! Har har har.” Later, we discovered another video with a similar setup, albeit this time replacing the carnosaur with some sort of winged dinosaur, like a pteradon or pteradactyl. Despite being gritty and poorly filmed and obviously not enjoyable for the women involved, the concept had some sort of lasting neurological appeal, at least for the sake of comedy. We do realize that many people are aroused by snakes and lizards and dinosaurs, and that’s all well and good, but our Dinosaur Porn project is not for the sake of titillation (wisely, we think). It’s also a giant joke — a way to shake up a staid and conventional literary scene, a way to elevate the absurd and the nutty without sacrificing literary quality, and a way to bring people out of their comfortable press-table shells.

MMB: What types of submissions were you looking for?

AB: We were hoping this project would inspire writers of various traditions and disciplines to write in ways (and about certain subject matter) that maybe normally they wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing. We encouraged creative responses to the theme. Is Dinosaur Porn material that would titillate dinosaurs? Does it refer to old, outdated modes of pornography? Is it an investigation or study of dinosaurs that is in some way pornographic (arousing? exploitative? sinful? fraught with gender issues? etc.)? In other words, the sky was the limit in terms of what we were looking for.

MMB: Can you share a couple basic storylines from a few of your submissions?

AB: We received everything from sloppily written attempts at degrading, misogynist sex (again, ew) to spare, beautiful poems relating relationships to evolutionary cycles or extinction. We received stories about asteroids and fossilized remains of antediluvian love. Certain stories conflate older, geriatric literary figures with the dinosaurs we so love to imagine. Other poems and stories have engaged the linguistic and syntactical possibilities of our prehistoric friends, exploring dino genealogies and etymologies. Some stories have been more sex-oriented — some is straightforward erotica — while others have attempted to bring a more documentary-realist eye to the world of porn and its more animalistic, cruder realities. Visual art submissions have been as wild and varied and occasionally hilarious as we hoped they’d be. We don’t want to give any more specifics, unfortunately, because we’re still deciding on what made the final cut.

MMB: Who is this book aimed at and when can we expect to see the collection?

AB: This collection will be launched sometime in October or November and available in various independent bookstores as well as at various small press fairs, festivals, and conventions. It will be hand-made, perfect-bound, and very special — we have no intention of sacrificing beautiful design craft due to our strange theme. The anthology is geared toward people who are aware of (and who frequent) small press events, people who support the world of chapbooks and micro-press publishing and, of course, for all the crazy people who got excited with the mere mention of dinosaur porn.

For more info, go to www.fernohouse.com.